Only a win will do, Pools

It's hardly been a conventional start to the season for Hartlepool United, burt they do tend to specualise in the unexpected and forecasting anything to do with the club, let alone results, has always beena a hazardous business.

So while trying to figure out how they will fare at home to League One bottom club Scunthorpe on Saturday should be relatively easy, it isn’t.

Scunthorpe have lost all three of their League One games, two of them at home, and have scored only once and conceded nine goals.

But it’s hardly a battle of the giants as Pools have only one point themselves, though that’s from only two games after their trip to Leyton Orient got stuck in traffic last weekend. They have also failed to score in four and a half hours of football.

Boss Neale Cooper has already roasted his players twice after games, once in the Capital One Cup shocker at Crewe and then in the League at Notts County, and now he says nobody’s place is safe as he looks for a winning formula.

He told the Mail: “We haven’t got too many options when it comes to changing things, but anyone who isn’t doing it will be told so.

“This means too much to myself and the supporters.

“I need winners in there and that means boys showing me that they deserve to be in the team in the first place and, once they’re in, doing enough to stay there.”

Cooper has already told Simon Walton that he wants more from the former Plymouth midfield man, but the same could be said of several others after a hugely disappointing start to the season.

Forecasting results might be difficult, but one forecast is easy – if Pools don’t win on Saturday, there will be hell on.